RepresentPA Blog RSS

We’re proud Pennsylvanians. We’re proud of the diversity, beauty, grit, and passion that form the bedrock of our Commonwealth. And we are always looking for ways to share that PA pride.  But as we looked for symbols of Pennsylvania pride that we could wear or display, we kept coming up short. Sure, there are state symbols. We’ve got the: White-tailed deer, our state animal; Ruffed grouse, our state bird; Mountain laurel, our state flower; Firefly, our state insect; and even Milk, our state beverage. But there’s no symbol of the unrivaled pride we feel at being Pennsylvanians. So we created...

Elk Country. The term conjures up images of the Great American West: majestic beasts, grazing among aspen, with soaring mountains in the background. But in Pennsylvania, an escape to Elk Country doesn’t require a plane ticket or a long family road trip. If you’re lucky, you can catch a rare sighting of an elk east of the Mississippi right here in Northern PA, not far from home. Where did the PA elk come from? Although elk once roamed much of the northeast, the species was overhunted by European settlers and disappeared from Pennsylvania by the late 1860s. It was a...

Pennsylvania’s rivers, creeks, and streams have always been one of our state’s great selling points. Long before PA was deemed the “Keystone State,” our over 83,000 miles of water (and 1,200 miles of canal!) offered critical transportation routes. Timber, anthracite, dry goods, and even people all floated across the state on their way to buy, sell, and trade—contributing to Pennsylvania’s important role in our nation’s economy. Today, our waterways are still a key resource for local residents. But in place of the canal boats and mules, you’re more likely to find kayaks, canoes, standing boards, and rafts floating down the...

As we travel across our state sharing the Symbol of Pennsylvania, we’re sometimes asked about what the symbol means and why we feel so strongly about our PA roots. We love hearing these questions, because they cut right to the core of why we launched RepresentPA. Yes, we are proud of our state and we wanted a symbol to convey that. But we also know that state pride is important, and there are a ton of benefits to having a symbol we can all rally around. For example, state pride: Increases tourism People plan their vacations around beautiful locations they’ve...